


Those Old Traditions

by Grimmy88



Category: Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:04:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimmy88/pseuds/Grimmy88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's everyone's favorite time of year and Ellis is astounded and inspired by the traditions of Nick's family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Old Traditions

            He’d really meant to be finished with all of it by the time Nick and his mother got back. Mainly because he’d wanted it to be a surprise for them without being teased about it. Unfortunately for him the duo pulled into the driveway as he was propped on the ladder, mid-way between each end of the gutters and far too high off the ground to possibly hide what he’d been up to.

            A rock tapped at his skull somewhere behind his ear.

            He placed the plastic holder he’d been maneuvering in place before glancing over his shoulder and then down and around as Nick circled about the ladder’s legs.

            “What’re you doing?”

            “What’re ya, blind? I’m puttin’ up Christmas lights.”

            Nick scuffed his shoe over the driveway’s surface and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Let me rephrase: why are you putting up Christmas lights?”

            “…’Cause it’s December?”

            “Nick,” Annalynne called, moving over to place three bags of groceries in his arms. “If you make my son fall off that ladder then the only person capable of finishing would be you.” She returned to the trunk of her car.

            “Right, carrying in groceries or stringing up lights; I’ll pick the lesser domestic evil.”

 

            Nick stayed outside with him after his mother had gone back inside to avoid the chill. He’d adopted a hoodie for just that purpose, pulled up tight over the back of his hat so that the bill could poke out from it. His lover stood beside him, dress pants and dress shirt only, hands once again tucked away inside his pockets.

            “You’re not going to leave these on all night are you?”

            “Nah,” Ellis fiddled with the extra bulbs he had tucked away in the wide pockets of his sweatshirt. “I’ll come out around ten or so an’ unplug ‘em all.”

            The gambler snorted.

            “What?”

            “Nothing.”

            The hick leveled him with a stare from just under the brim of his hat. “What?”

            “You should get timers,” Nick answered. He withdrew his right hand from his pocket, used it to swipe under his nose before motioning out over the yard. “You can get them on stakes, put them next to the bushes, and set the time when you want everything to turn off.”

            “Oh.”

            “ _Oh_ ,” the conman returned.

            “Man, shut up. We never put up lights before.”

            “And you decided to start now because…?”

            “Well, yer parents do it,” Ellis muttered. They’d gone over to their house for dinner the day before they flew down to spend Christmas, as the hick had requested/demanded, with his family.

            Ellis had been in a little bit of awe, for lack of a better phrase. They’d pulled up to the large house, lawn strewn with snow and inflatable decorations. He’d seen these things before, of course, but never so many in one person’s yard. There had been a Christmas tree with Santa hanging from the end, a snowman, another Santa with another snowman, and one that had been made to represent a snow globe with Snoopy and Charlie Brown inside.

            The fact that that had only been the yard had been a little daunting. The walkways had been lined with lighted candy-canes and blanket icicle lights held up by posts. The house itself had had strings of lights inside every window and along each gutter. After standing, amazed, at the sight for several moments Ellis had wondered if astronauts were marveling at it, just as he was, only from space.

            So when Nick had explained that this was a tradition going back as far as he remembered the southerner figured it had been something he was used to and something he’d come to expect during the holiday season.

            Besides, it wasn’t like he’d gone out and bought up the entire store, just some icicle lights of his own and some multi-colored ones for the bushes in front of the patio. Now that he thought about it he could’ve probably lined the patio railing with something as well. And of course the lawn itself was bare…

            “…Oh, goddammit, Ellis,” Nick laughed, rousing him from his calculations. “You’re an idiot, you know that? I hated those decorations at home because I’m the one who had to put them up for all those years. When I said I was done my parents decided to hire some Mexicans to do it instead.”

            Ellis looked back towards the lights and tried to dig his hands deeper inside his pockets. “Oh..”

            The gravel laugh was softer this time and accompanied by a hand that tugged on the back of the hick’s hood. Ellis followed the movement backwards before displacing his hands so he could make sure his hat stayed on his head.

            “Knock it off, it’s cold out here.”

            “Retarded and a pussy,” Nick mused. “Let’s go back inside. We’ll go get those timers tomorrow.”

            “Thoughtchya didn’t like lights?” Ellis followed him up the driveway into the garage, grateful for the shadows that hid his grin.

            “I don’t but we might as well fix it so your mother’s house doesn’t look like shit for the rest of the month.”

 

            With the outside of the house fixed Ellis figured he’d better set his sights on the inside. Linda’s normally neutral decorum had been taken over by swatches of red and green and mistletoe and glowing lights. Their tree had even been a big evergreen they’d gone out and bought. Upon further investigation the mechanic had also found that Nick’s family was actually one of the ones who strung popcorn.

            He didn’t think he could imagine sitting still for such a mundane task.

            The tree itself had been lined with white lights and expensive looking ornaments with a charming, white angel on the peak to top it all off. Beneath it was a large, circular red cloth. Around the fabric’s perimeter there had been a small set of train tracks with a little battery-powered locomotive circling around it repeatedly.

            The train corresponded to a little fake village Nick’s father had set up on the table beside the tree. He lined it with cotton molded to resemble snow and then dotted that snow with small porcelain figurines and their porcelain homes and movie theaters.

            And even though Nick rolled his eyes when explaining it Ellis had wondered why his own family hadn’t thought to do something like this.

            Now, he couldn’t very well buy a whole town set in one go based on how expensive his lover had said the ‘stupid’ things were. And he couldn’t exactly go out and buy a train to circle around the base of their own tree.

            And he didn’t really think he wanted to because, honestly, their tree wasn’t really even a tree. It had been made to look like a tree, of course, but it was a large, fake plastic one his mother had bought when he was younger.

            He could remember, maybe when he was five or six, they had actually gotten a real tree. He remembered because the front room had always smelled like pine when he descended in the morning. He also remembered the colored lights they had lined it with.

            Add Keith coming over to play one day into the mix and you get a very burnt and charred Christmas tree.

            So the plastic tree had always been a safe bet for them. At first it had started out looking just as elegant as those real trees they used to purchase. Unfortunately over the years the branches had begun to lose bristles and had grown very inclined to stick together.

            The plastic center rod also refused to stand up straight from its holder anymore so Ellis always had to slide the branches into it and deal with the lopsided tree until he managed to shove a book or something under the stand

            It was a pathetic thing, really, until he wrapped his preferred colored lights all around it like a suit of glowing festivity. Then he would line it with ornaments. Of course they didn’t really have any pretty, expensive ornaments to adorn. The majority of their ornaments had been made by Ellis in school or in boy scouts or just because he’d thought the tree needed more decoration to hide the obvious gaps between branches. What hadn’t been made by his own hands had been gifts from others.

            And atop their tree they didn’t have a nice angel. Theirs was wooden, carved by both Ellis and his grandfather and painted by the former. The paint was stripping now, and really, he should’ve touched it up after last year, but his mother had insisted her age was a part of her charm.

            Of course, Ellis had found the pretty angel atop Linda’s tree to be just as charming, but his mother was right, he couldn’t very well change anything about his own tree. But if he couldn’t change the tree or the decorations on it and around it, and if he didn’t exactly do a good job of the outside house, he figured he could at least dress up the inside to Nick’s liking.

            He’d noticed Linda had had Christmas sweets lined up all around the house. There had been a gingerbread house in the center of the kitchen table, plates of cookies on most counters (though he’d noted that she’d gotten them from bakeries), and hollowed-out glass containers shaped as snowmen and pine-trees filled with candy everywhere else.

            He’d noticed most these things because he’d constantly been eating from them, obviously, but still, he figured it was an important thing to take into consideration.

            Now, his mother was the baker, and so the day when he had convinced her to make numerous batches he stood along with her in the kitchen, hovering over his own little quarantined part of the island so he could piece together a gingerbread house from the kit he had bought a half an hour prior.

            He was in the process of placing the roof atop the walls he had finally managed to stick together with liberal amounts of frosting when Nick walked into the kitchen. Ellis watched the northerner lift an eyebrow.

            “What’re you doing?”

            “…Makin’ a gingerbread house.” Ellis turned his attention back down to the cookie-house, slowly taking his hands away from the two brick-like pieces of roof to see if they were finally sealed to the other pieces. When they didn’t move he grabbed the frosting applicator and made to slather the white-liquid-sugar over the brown.

            As soon as the first drop fell the roof slipped right from the house to clunk against the island beneath them. The walls of the house followed quickly after.

            Nick laughed and one of his fingers, one without a ring, dipped into the frosting and before Ellis could blink the white coating was being smeared down the bridge of his nose. And he couldn’t very well retaliate with anything but a glare considering his hands were covered with the stuff.

            Ellis let his head hang.

            “I hate those things.”

            The hick looked up. “Oh.”

 

            He knew Nick liked sweets, maybe not as much as he himself liked them, but the gambler would drink hot chocolate and eat Hershey’s and sometimes he ate cake and cookies. So if the gingerbread house didn’t work then maybe his own displays of candies, and the chocolate-chip and mint cookies his mother had finished baking, would make up for it.

            So he went out and purchased similar glass figures he’d seen in Linda’s household and set about filling them with the holiday candy bags he’d bought at the store.

            They went untouched for the next few days, and Ellis had chalked it up to being yet another failure and was about to rip one of the snowman’s heads off and just devour all the tempting candy inside to get rid of the reminder when Nick joined him, glasses low on his nose and book in his hand. When he saw where Ellis’ gaze was directed he tapped his hand on the glass man’s hat.

            “I thought Linda was the only one who did this.”

            “Well, it’s-a good idea,” Ellis said.

            “Sure, if you like gaining twenty pounds in the month of December alone.”

            “Oh.”

 

            He’d run out of ideas so he couldn’t exactly count it as giving up, but if he didn’t count it as that it would go under the failure column.

            There was always the possibility that Nick hadn’t noticed what he’d been attempting, of course. Ellis hadn’t stupidly compared any of it to Linda’s decorations like he had the night with the lights. And if asked he could always claim that he was just trying to be festive, or something.

            Ultimately he figured he shouldn’t worry about it anymore, especially not when he and his mother were getting ready to watch one of their Christmas movies as they always used to in the week leading up to Christmas.

            Still, before he had even popped in the DVD for her he found himself walking out onto the front patio without any socks to find Nick sitting on the porch swing on his cell phone. He was hunched forward and talking softly and kindly, meaning it was probably his step-mother, so he didn’t notice Ellis’ presence until the younger man sat beside him.

            When the phone call beeped to an end Nick sat up straight to regard him.

            “Me’n mom are gonna watch a movie if you wanna.”

            “Sure.” He stood to mirror the redneck’s movement.

            “It’s a Christmas movie, just-a warn ya,” Ellis explained after closing the front door behind them. “We always watch one fer the week leadin’ up-ta Christmas.”

            “That’s only six or seven movies.”

            “We only like six or seven,” the hick responded. He shrugged at Nick’s silence. “I dunno, it’s just somethin’ we used-ta do.”

            “Oh.”

 

            Annalynne retired the moment the credits began to roll, giving them both a good night and Ellis a kiss on his head before leaving the room to climb up the staircase to bed. Bull padded up after her on heavy, drowsy paws.

            Nick watched her go and then placed his socked feet up on the coffee table before him, leaning back into the padding of the couch with one arm along the back of it and the other hooked around the arm to keep his wineglass close to his face.

            Ellis moved to his empty side and rested his skull back against the free arm.

            “Tradition for your grandfather to stay in the basement during Christmas, too?”

            “He’ll come up fer food,” the hick replied. He kicked his own feet up onto the table next to Nick’s larger ones. “Nobody stays away from mom’s lasagna.”

            “She makes lasagna for Christmas dinner?”

            “Yeah, I thought I toldjya that.”

            “Nope. …Linda does, too.”

            Ellis nodded. “Should’a figured, she does a lot-a stuff fer Christmas.”

            “Too much,” Nick murmured in agreement into his wineglass.

            “I think it’s nice.”

            “I think it’s a hassle,” the older man returned. “I used to have to put all that crap up and that’s what it all was—crap. The lights are nice to look at, don’t get me wrong. So’s the tree. But they buy all new stuff every two or three years so nothing goes bad. I mean compare that to your tree, how old is that thing?”

            Ellis snorted. “Close-ta twenty years or so?”

            The wineglass was raised back up.

            “…Still, yer parent’s house is nice,” the hick affirmed. “It’s nice-ta do that Christmas stuff an’ at least you guys get snow.”

            “Yeah, we get snow and then we have to shovel it and it turns black and gross and it soaks _everything_. So trust me, trading all that for Christmas movies and cookies that your mother actually bakes is a good move.”

            After waiting for Nick to finish the last sip of his alcohol and set the glass aside Ellis’ face broke out into a grin accompanied by the softest of laughs. “I think ya juss went all Charlie Brown on me.”

            “…I fucking hate you,” Nick reminded him but there was an amused smile there so Ellis let it go. “…And stop trying to compare your house to Linda’s.”

            Ellis snorted again and moved to redirect his gaze back to the television when he shot up straight and then heaved himself up from the couch. “That reminds me!” He managed to miss hitting his shin on the corner of the table as he dashed from the room.

            When he came back Nick was pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

            Ellis grinned and sat back down beside him. “I had’a better idea fer the Mistletoe.”

            “Alright, fine. Enlighten me.”

            The hick pulled his cap over his hair and let his hand drift away to reveal a small little sliver of Mistletoe that he had safety-pinned to the end of blue bill.

            His lover blinked once. “Ellis, I know I’ve asked you this before but answer me honestly, okay?”

            “Okay?”

            “Are you fucking retarded?”

            Ellis laughed it away and allowed Nick to unclasp the small plant from his hat. “Fine, then where do you want to put it?”

            Which really, in hindsight, was a stupid question and he shouldn’t have been the least bit surprised when his lover managed to tuck the stem, with the aid of one of the small branches, inside his belt, allowing the rest of the green leaves and berries to dangle down above his cock.

            Ellis dropped his face into his palms. “I should juss be glad I waited-ta show ya until mom went upstairs.”

            


End file.
